Once Upon a Time there was an enchanted forest filled with all the classic characters we know. Or think we know. One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen. Our world. This is how it happened…

So begins our journey through a land of magic filled with daring quests for happy endings…much like the one Prince Charming is on. He must find Snow White before it is too late. In the woods, as if sleeping, rests Snow White surrounded by her dear friends, the seven dwarfs. Is Prince Charming too late? The dwarfs think so, but there must be way to revive his true love. Where magic is abounding, members of the enchanted forest know of one ultimate cure that will break any curse…true love’s kiss. Will it be enough this time? Alas, it works. Snow White is revived and overjoyed to see her beloved Prince has found her at last, as he proclaims he will always find her.

The two quickly marry, surrounded by nearly every creature and person in the kingdom to wish them happiness on this day. However, the Evil Queen has heard her curse has been broken. Just as Prince Charming and Snow White are about to seal the deal with another kiss, the Evil Queen crashes the wedding. She’s not here to wish them many blessings but to warn them of her wrath. She’s infuriated, but with an eerily calm voice and demeanor threatens them that “soon” she will destroy their happiness. Not just Snow White’s and Prince Charming’s, but the entire kingdom’s. “Soon” everything they all hold dear will be ripped from them.

In the months following the joyous union of Snow White and Prince Charming, the kingdom anxiously awaits for this horrible threat to be fulfilled. The Charmings are expecting a child and Snow White is worried about the safety of her new family and the entire realm. Charming tries to comfort her, but none can be found. Snow White knows that the Evil Queen will make good on her threat, she has before, and then what? What will happen to them? Their child? Only one in the entire kingdom can know. If only she could talk with him. Charming is appalled at such a suggestion. He’s dangerous and manipulative; there’s a reason he’s locked away. But Snow will have none of it. He is the only one who can guarantee the future, and she must know.

Deep in the tunnels there is a dungeon where the one resides to waste away his never-ending days: Rumplestiltskin. He confirms Snow White’s fears. The Queen will make good on her threat and it’s coming. And when it does, all will be taken to a place where there are no more happy endings. Only one will be able to save them—the unborn baby of Snow White and Prince Charming. On her 28th birthday she will return and she will restore the happiness in the realm.

So the Charmings quickly gather a group to determine how best to take down the Queen before she can enact such a curse. Again, only one solution is available. No one can stop this curse from happening, but the child can be spared. If the stump of an enchanted tree can be made into a vessel, a wardrobe, it can safety hold one.

The plan is set: Snow White will go in the wardrobe, raise the child, and return in 28 years to save them all. However, even the best laid plans can be thwarted. And so it is true with this one when the baby comes too soon with the curse upon the kingdom. The baby must go alone. She will come back for them; they must believe that. With that hope, the Charmings send Emma away in the wardrobe, already anxiously awaiting her 28th year as the curse envelopes the realm...

Skip to Storybrooke, Maine...or first, Boston, Mass. Emma, grown and taking on the world, is a bail bonds person. She's just come home from tracking down another irresponsible louse. Alone in her empty apartment, she lights a lonely blue candle in the shape of a star in a single cupcake she bought herself. You see, today is her birthday, her 28th. Normally not significant or any type of milestone year. Just one more on the way to 30. Except, for us. We know her destiny and what her 28th birthday represents.

Just as she's finished wishing upon the lonely blue star candle and blows it out, the doorbell rings. It's Henry, the 10-year-old boy she gave up for adoption 10 years before. He wants her to come home with him...to Storybrooke, Maine, where all the fairy tale characters in his book are trapped because of a curse the Evil Queen created. Emma, for obvious reasons, is skeptical. But she concedes when Henry threatens to tell the police she kidnapped him.

Once in Storybrooke, Emma encounters the first of several things amiss with the town, not that she believes any of it: the clock tower resting at 8:15pm--"Time is frozen here," Henry claims. And they can't leave or else "bad things" will happen. But that doesn't convince Emma. So what if the clock is stopped? Merely a coincidence. But what about Henry's adoptive mother, the mayor? She's a little overbearing, overly polite, and a little off. But that's not her concern. He's the mayor's kid, not hers. She has no ties; she can leave. Besides, she did what the kid asked: she brought him home.

She doesn't get far when she's run off the road by a wolf standing at the city limits. Hauled off to the Storybrooke jail (for apple-cider intoxication and ruing the town sign), she wakes up to find out that Henry is missing again. The mayor offers to free Emma in exchange for Emma's help in tracking him down. This leads her to Miss Mary Margaret Blanchard, Henry's teacher (AKA Snow White). Unaware that Henry used her credit card to find Emma, Miss Blanchard also confesses to giving Henry the fairy tale book. It was her way of giving him hope, of even the possibility of a happy ending. It is clear to Emma and Miss Blanchard that Henry and his mother don't get along, he's lonely, and he needs some form of happiness. The book was Miss Blanchard's solution to helping him. She suggests Emma check Henry's castle--he just might be there.

Emma finds him, where he tries desperately to convince her to stay and fight the ultimate battle to free the town. Emma is having none of it. She's a regular person, not a fairy tale character, and definitely not a hero. However, once she takes Henry home again, she feels somewhat responsible to see to his well-being. After all, she gave him away so that he would have his best chance, and something is just not right here. So she agrees to stay a week, just one week.

And that's when it happens, the clock moves, just a single minute more, but that's enough. It has begun!

So, I know many of you readers have already seen the full season. I thank you for returning to read this review! Here are some questions that pertain to this episode, but also questions that I feel are unanswered throughout the season and might be addressed in season 2. Let me know what you think!

Burning Questions: 1) How did the Evil Queen become dethroned? 2) What does the writing on Emma's apartment door mean? Will we see it again? 3) What kind of power does Rumplestiltskin have if he knows your name? 4) Did Rumplestiltskin choose the 28th year to be the year Emma came back? Or was it because he could see the future and he knew Henry would find Emma and bring her back, and it just happened to be her 28th year? 5) What happens if you break Rumplestitskin’s deals? He’s locked up…so why did Snow White adhere to the deal? 6) How long has Henry been aware that time is frozen? 7) How did Henry make the connections from the Storybrooke citizens to their fairy tale counterparts? What tipped him off—other than their creatively fitting, human occupations, i.e. a therapist for a conscience? 8) What did Regina ever do to make Henry suspect that she was the Evil Queen? 9) How long has Henry been seeing Archie Hopper for therapy? And for what exactly? Because he believes in fairy tales? 10) Where did the fairy tale book come from? How did Mary Margaret get it? 11) Why would Regina (Evil Queen) want to send everyone to a town where she would have to keep track of them all the time? How is that a happy ending for her? 12) Is Emma’s “superpower” real or just part of her job that she would say that? 13) How can Mr. Gold (Rumple) own the town? Isn’t this the Evil Queen’s happy ending? Does that make him have power over her?